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Lake Matheson
The View Of Mt Cook & Mt Tasman - the tallest two mountains in NZThe drive into Glacier country was pretty scenic we finally made it back to the coast after being inland for several weeks, but no surfing for Matty, not yet!!! There are two big glaciers and glacier towns the Franz-Josef and the slightly less touristy Fox, we decided to stay in the Fox. Our first full day was a Sunday and it rained lots, it was the first time we have had a Sunday experience in a while, we sat around doing nothing all day watching Star Trek, but the highlight was talking to and seeing for the first time Daisy Bailey, we are both looking forward to giving her a cuddle in 6 weeks time. The following day in pissed it down with rain so we did sweet FA again. And the next day it was still raining but we decided to brave the elements and went for a walk around Lake Matheson, the views were average with the cloud in the way, but still it was something to do. The weather man said that finally the rain should come to an end tomorrow so we have booked onto a full day walk on the Fox Glacier.
We got extremely
Lake Matheson
A cool reflection in the lake lucky when we woke in the morning, we looked up to the glaciers and saw Blue Skies with the occasional cloud but more impressive than that was that all the rain which we had, was not rain on the mountain tops but Snow and it looked pretty sweet. After a long kit up session with the glacier guide and taking forever getting our crampons (steel spikes to put on your boots to grip on the ice) to the right size we headed off for the glacier after an hours walk through the temperate rainforest we arrived a couple of hundred metres into the glacier. The ice was not as hard to walk on as we thought the crampons made sure of that. We were guided onto the middle of the glacier and found a couple of holes for cool pictures but it wasn't until after lunch that they took us to the mother of all crevices and caverns, we got to explore these in quite some detail and the Ice looked really blue and if you looked down into the crevices you could see some went real deep. After this we continued to wonder around looking for more crevices before
Lake Matheson
Us and the Mountains finishing the day back at the starting point. Almost all the tour group came for evening beers in the local pub which had a beautiful fire for us all to snuggle around.
The next day was perfect clear skies and the mountains were still clad in fresh snow, so before the drive up to the Franz-Josef glacier, we decided to go back to Lake Matheson this time we got blessed with great views of Mount Cook & Mount Tasman the largest two mountains in New Zealand. When we arrived at the Franz-Joseph we hiked to the bottom of the glacier getting lots of pictures of the base and the surrounding waterfalls but the best activity of the day happened by pure chance.
Nibby pulled off the main road to see if the side road offered a good view, in the car park we were stopped by a Kiwi salesman (bloody salesmen!) asking us if we wanted a scenic helicopter flight, we declined quickly with “thanks, but we can't afford one” it was then when the deal of New Zealand was landed to us, this man already had a half full helicopter going in 5 minutes time which was
Franz-Joesph
A cool waterfall going for a 40 minute scenic flight around the glacier area with a snow landing at the top and he could let us go for 50 pounds each we snatched his arm off knowing that these trips are normally priced at 150-250 pounds. Stoked.
Literally 5 mins later it hit us we were about to go in a helicopter for the first time and the heart started going and in the same instant we took off. It was a tiny helicopter which only fitted 4 tourists and 1 pilot the views where superb and landing at the top really iced the cake with over a foot of fresh powder.
A great 2 days experience's on the Glaciers we will not forget them quickly!!
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